Florida's lost tribes find a home in museum and gallery on Aviles Street

MELISSA PRACHTCompass Editor

Published Friday, August 13, 2004

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THEODORE MORRIS and Julia Gatlin stand next to Morris' painting of Outina, a Timucua chief or 'cacque' inside Florida's Lost Tribes Museum Gallery & Imports, set to open next week at 11-C Aviles St.

By MELISSA PRACHT Staff Everyone knows about what went on during the 300 years or so after Pedro Menendez came ashore in St. Augustine and a series of nations fought and negotiated for the right to fly their flag over the city.

But what transpired here and throughout Florida during the previous 13,000 years is a little cloudy. The native cultures that developed and thrived in the swamps and the forests are not as familiar to us as Menendez or Henry Flagler.

"It's not that people don't care," says Theodore Morris, painter of Florida's extinct Native American tribes. "They just don't know."

Morris and business partner Julia Gatlin are channeling their passion for these cultures and the swath of history they occupied to educate the masses with their new venture, Florida's Lost Tribes Museum Gallery & Imports, opening unofficially next week at 11-C Aviles St.

A grand opening date will be announced later.

Morris, who moved to St. Augustine about a year ago in the hopes of creating a museum for his work, has studied and painted Florida's tribes for 13 years, using items found at archeological sites and what recorded history exists on the people who vanished in the years following the European occupation of Florida.

Gatlin has worked with the Florida Museum of Natural History to create Timucua and Seminole exhibits at the Micanopy Historical Museum and has followed her interest in archeology for many years.

"Our goal is to educate people about the history and lives of aboriginals who lived in Florida from prehistoric times up to European contact," says Gatlin.

Both she and Morris will give lectures to visitors to the museum and they are working with tour companies to bring in groups of adults and children. The original paintings and reproduction artifacts will be used as visual aides to give people an idea of what natives' lives were like, says Gatlin. Prints of Morris's paintings, reproduction artifacts, books and a film that utilized the painter's work and was aired on PBS will all be for sale.

Morris' paintings, some of which have been commissioned by Harcourt text books and Parkin Archeological State Park in Arkansas and used in a book written by renowned archaeologist Jerald Milanich -- to be released by University Press of Florida in September -- illustrate how members of tribes such as the Timucua, Ocale and Tocobaga would have appeared in ceremonial dress and body paint or in daily activities.

The paintings, which are quite skillfully executed, succeed in bringing to life people of whom even scholars have limited knowledge. Far from stiff educational aides, these are real works of art: light shines behind the eyes of his chiefs, mothers and children; each one exudes an individual personality and seems part of a living culture.

"Hopefully, when people make an emotional connection to history, they'll begin to care about it," says Gatlin.

The museum and gallery takes the place of Global Imports, which has closed. Some art items from Africa and Asia came with the space and Gatlin is selling the inventory at discount prices.